


Heart

by EvieSmallwood



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Fictober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8213662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieSmallwood/pseuds/EvieSmallwood
Summary: Arya has a heart.





	

 

_No One Has A Heart_

 Some said that she did not have a heart.

 Some stared, others pointed, at the wolf-girl of the north with no pack. When they stopped at inns and taverns, the smallfolk all gaped when her name was given. They cared not for her own feelings, because why would a cold-blooded killer bother to protest against such? Why would a girl with no heart even notice?

 But it hurt. All of it. Every stare and gape and gawk. Every doubt.

 What was more was their overwhelming belief; they had no doubt to the contrary. They were so willing to call her ‘she-wolf,’ and ‘stoneheart.’

 She had lost so much. One might say that she had never truly possessed the love of anyone but a bastard boy. But that could not be true; father had loved her, and Robb, and Bran. But they were all dead.

 So was Jon, most like.

 In her life she had worn face after face; put on facade after facade. She had named herself thousands of names, and with each one she gained a piece of herself as well — or sometimes she lost a piece. But she never lost Arya. She had never forgotten how to be Arya. She had come close, to tell it true, but all the same every memory and word and thought and feeling was still there, buried under something or other.

 Little things cleared away the clutter. A spare smile, or a kind soul. Dreams of her family — free dreams, which she did not have to suppress for fear of the Kindly Man. The return of Nymeria. Finding Gendry.

 But even with all of that she was still not truly Arya Stark. Not unless she was home, where the snow fell, and the white winds blew, and her pack — the last of her beloved pack — lived and breathed. She would not let herself be Arya until she knelt under the red boughs of the Heart Tree and cried for her losses like she had not been able to.

 Until she cried for Mother, and Father, and Robb, and Bran, and Rickon.

 Hopefully Jon and Sansa would be just beside her, crying, too. Hopefully she would feel safe even as she wept.

 These were the giddy, foolhardy dreams of a girl without a name, or home. But they were the wishes and hopes of a girl with a heart.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is based off of the Fictober prompt "Heart." Just a quick little drabble.


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